Penance
by Bloodsong 13T
Summary: The League of Assassins makes Malcolm Merlyn pay for his crimes against humanity.
1. Pain is Inevitable

**Penance**

**Pain is Inevitable**

_CONTENT:_  
Rating: Mature  
Flavor: Drama, Angst  
Language: some  
Violence: torture  
Nudity: implied (m)  
Sex: none  
Other: did i mention the torture?

_Author's Note:_

First, I must say this. When Arrow went on a little break in December and people said it wouldn't be back until... what was it, January something, I complained and cried. Then they told me that MOST other shows were on break until March something. Now that we had some Arrow eps and it's on break (again!) until March 18... well, I mean, look how much better we have it than all those other fans of all those other shows! Right? Right!

Right, I couldn't sleep last night, so to get back at the CW for torturing us with a mid-season finale, and a demi-mid-season finale, I came up with... MORE TORTURE!

Yes, Malcolm gets tortured. You knew that, right? Hey, it's not even MY IDEA this time! :X But, my curare fetish does show up again. Come on, he's got to be at least a little phobic about that after 'Dead to Rights.'

All extra names are made up; any similarity to any actual person (or, heck, characters from other worlds), living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

I also have to warn you... I don't know how this ends. Sorta like how "Broken Arrow" went. My Brain gnawed on this chew toy for a while, then dropped it and went frolicking in the daisies. So... I dunno.

* * *

**Pain is Inevitable**

===#===

"No!" Malcolm yelled as they dragged him away. "_No!_" He wasn't ready. His plan was still in motion; his pawns weren't set up; his students were nowhere near ready. How had the League found him? He'd had no warnings from his network of informants, no hint they were about to shift their focus to the part of town he frequented.

He tried to struggle, to fight his way free, but it was useless. The chains they'd put him in were much thicker and much shorter than the ones they'd used to transport him. He couldn't even stand if he tried. He'd have to face his fate on his knees.

They took him into the depths of the fortress, the bowels of Hell. He heard a low thrum, growing louder. It was a gas-powered generator. What did they need power down here for? What were they going to do to him?

_Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional_ Even his inner voice sounded unsure when he was faced with a situation not in his control. He bit down on his fear. All he had to do was survive long enough. Long enough for Oliver to pull off a miracle. The boy would try, anyway. He had heart, Malcolm had to give him that. It was enough for a slim hope.

The assassins opened a heavy iron door to a room well-lit with both torch and electric bulb. It was large, of dark stone like the whole of Nanda Parbat, with channels cut into the floor beneath a stainless steel operating table. Some concessions had been made for the advances in the art of torture, while other conventions stood the test of centuries.

The guards carried him inside to meet his torturer. Whoever Ra's had chosen for this duty was cloaked head to toe in the anonymity of the League garb: hood, mask, leather, all black, save for the boots and gloves, which were crimson. To match the blood they'd be covered with soon enough.

Malcolm could tell it was a woman. She seemed so much smaller than his guards, and himself even, if he weren't down here on his knees. That didn't matter, within the League. All the elite assassins were trained to the utmost lethality, and a little thing like size did nothing to mitigate that.

Her eyes were dark beneath the shadow of the hood. She didn't bother to acknowledge him as she walked up, seized his hair to pull his head aside, and jammed a needle into his neck. He grunted more in surprise than pain. She turned away. "Unchain him. Take his clothes. Put him on the table." Her voice was low, smooth, devoid of warmth. Ra's had said he would take no pleasure in Malcolm's punishment; it seemed he picked an equally cold-blooded torturer. One less likely to get carried away and go too far, too quickly. Yet also harder to manipulate.

Malcolm hesitated. Should he fight? Or 'face his end with some dignity'? Considering the hair-thin chance of a rescue, he decided he had best exploit every opportunity. He dropped his head, slumped in defeat, as not to telegraph his intentions to his captors.

One of the guards unshackled his wrists, but kept him held in an arm lock while the other tugged at the zipper of his jacket and the buttons of his shirt. Malcolm didn't resist; he bided his time. His extremities began to go numb. He took a deeper breath to fortify himself against the drug, but then his lungs began to weigh heavily in his chest.

They shifted their grip to get the sleeves off, and still he didn't resist. They removed the ankle cuffs and dragged him upright. That's when he moved. He struck out at one guard's throat, then turned to pull the other off balance.

He lacked the strength. His knees buckled, and he fell against the guard. A heavy weight seemed to be crushing his chest; he struggled to draw breath.

Then they were lifting him and setting him on the table. He couldn't breathe; his vision dimmed. He tried to lift his arms, to push away whatever was pressing down on him, but he couldn't move. Curare. He recognized it from the time he'd been shot, from the nightmares he had afterwards, of lying helpless while the dark figure of Frank Chen and the Triad gunman closed in and killed Tommy. Then came for him.

Shadows passed over his eyes; he couldn't blink, couldn't focus. They gripped his his head, his jaw; a tube was pushed down his throat. There was the gasp and hiss of a respirator, and his lungs inflated. His chest rose and fell once more with agonizing slowness. His vision cleared, his senses returned. The table was cold. They tugged off his boots, his pants.

The woman, his torturer, wrapped his left arm in a blood pressure cuff. She took her job of keeping him alive quite seriously.

Then he heard Ra's Al Ghul's voice. "A'haDeb. Do not permanently damage him." Malcolm could not turn his head, nor even his eyes. He could still see the Torturer in his field of vision.

She turned in apparent surprise. "But his reputation. He'll escape."

"He has another task to perform. You may take any other measure to ensure he does not escape." The Demon moved closer, looked down on Malcolm. "Is he conscious?"

"Yes. He can hear us."

"And feel pain?"

"Yes."

"You're sure?"

"Watch his eyes."

She did something - Malcolm couldn't see what - to his hand. It felt as if his thumb was being crushed in a vise, the flesh pulping, the bone grinding. He wanted to react, but was unable. The respirator kept his lungs working at that slow, sedate pace. He couldn't open his mouth, he couldn't tense his throat, he couldn't flinch or blink or pull away. Pain ripped through his body unimpeded.

Ra's watched, a slight frown creasing his brow. He didn't seem convinced. Then his visage blurred in Malcolm's sight, and he felt wetness on his face. The Demon nodded in satisfaction as another tear fell unchecked. "Very well. I will leave you to it. When his presence is needed, I will send someone to fetch him."

Ra's had plans for him? The pain in his hand throttled back to a dull ache while Malcolm's mind raced to figure out what that might mean. It sparked hope within him. Oliver would come.

A'haDeb removed the blood pressure cuff and put iron shackles on him again, to secure his wrists and ankles to the table. They were not standard cuffs, these had spikes lining the inside. They dug into his skin and they would rip and tear if he tried to struggle.

Not that he could.

The Torturer approached his right side. Still, she did not look him in the eye to acknowledge his presence or consciousness or even his status as a living human being. "I want you to remember these names." She lifted a thin-bladed knife and began making small cuts along his arm, starting from the wrist. One for each name.

"One: Emelia Abernathy.

"Two: Brian Acacia.

"Three: Brenda Adams.

"Four: Nancy Adams.

"Five: Nicole Adams.

"Six: William Adams..."

The cuts stung. They bled a little, but all-in-all, the pain was minor. Malcolm didn't understand the significance of these names, but the recitation of them prevented him from thinking, from trying to plan. There had to be a way to escape.

The Torturer continued making cuts, up the inside of his right arm, along the web of muscle to the pectoral, then across. 100 names. 200. Over 300, and Malcolm began to understand their significance.

His limbs began to tingle when the curare started to wear off. His fingers twitched. The Torturer paused and looked at him in some concern, perhaps. After another minute or two, his chest hitched and he started choking, trying to gag out the breathing tube.

A'haDeb pulled it out smoothly. "Stay calm. Your breathing will return to normal in a minute."

For now, he gasped weakly, unable to fill his lungs.

She moved and turned off the respirator. Then she returned and picked up the knife.

"315: Kevin McPherson.

"316: Serena Meachum.

"317: Robin Medranger.

"318: Thomas Merlyn."

Malcolm clenched his teeth as the knife bit into the skin over his heart. A'haDeb didn't stop or pause, but continued the litany of names of all the people killed in the Undertaking.

===#===

A band of fire burned across Malcolm's chest, along his arms. Wet blood painted his skin. A small penance; he knew it wasn't over.

A'haDeb had completed the list. Her shadowed eyes studied him, like an artist contemplating a half-finished work.

A messenger came, saying Malcolm was needed. The Magician quelled his hope.

"He is not ready."

"Ra's Al Ghul demands his presence."

"Ra's Al Ghul ordered me to take reasonable precaution against his escape. Wait outside." Whoever the Torturer was, she must have some authority within the League, for the messenger and the guards sent to escort him left immediately.

A'haDeb removed the shackle on his right wrist and replaced it with another. This one was smooth, tight to his skin, and had a double band. One went around his wrist and the other around his hand, with a narrow slot between them for his thumb. She locked them closed and secured them to the table. She disappeared a moment, then returned with a power drill, its cord dragging across the floor from the generator. Malcolm swallowed.

She gripped his fingers to lay his hand out flat, and he saw the hole in the center of the palm band. He tensed and held his breath, but that did nothing to stop the scream from ripping out of his throat as she lined up the drill and squeezed the trigger. Blood spurted from his palm, then bits of meat as the drill bored through his flesh. He jerked against the other restraints, making the spikes claw into his wrist and ankles.

She pulled the blood-dripping drill out of his hand and replaced it with a long bolt. Malcolm screamed again, overwhelmed with pain. He wrestled with it to get it under control, but she hadn't given him any warning, any time to prepare himself. She slipped a nut onto the bolt and tightened it to the back of his hand, using a wrench, until it would be impossible to budge without a tool.

Malcolm breathed heavily through his clenched teeth. The thing hurt like nine kinds of hell. And whatever they chained him to, he wasn't getting loose - the shackle was bolted through his damned hand!

A'haDeb had disappeared with the drill. Malcolm got a handle on the pain and looked around. No, she wasn't done; she had another cord, another power tool. He saw the snub nose of a nail gun.

She put one hand on his knee and placed the gun firmly on the meaty part of his leg just above it.

K-CHOK!

Malcolm howled as four inches of steel was driven into his flesh. The Torturer moved around to the other side. He tried to brace himself, but she didn't give him time. Methodical and ruthless, she lined up on the quadriceps and fired. Another scream tore his throat ragged.

He panted, vocalizing to vent the pain. He had to get on top of it, get in control. _Control._ He focused on his breathing, slowing it down, exhaling strongly, forcing the pain away. For each red star of pain that raged within his body, he created a cocoon of energy formed by his will. He squeezed them down, compacted them into tiny marbles that were too small to overwhelm him. His mind cleared, his breath steadied.

He looked up to see the Torturer watching him.

She was studying how he handled the pain, judging how much more she needed to inflict to incapacitate him to her satisfaction. His breath hitched.

She unfolded her arms, bringing the nail gun out from under her bicep. Malcolm threw his head back against the hard steel of the table. He looked at the ceiling, willing himself to go out of his body, to flee the oncoming pain. But he knew that was not an option. He had to satisfy the Torturer's need for his suffering.

Her hand was on his knee again, making the pain flare. Now the nail gun pressed against his leg two thirds of the way up his thigh.

K-CHOK!

It hit the bone. He could practically feel it split. He gave up trying to stifle his reactions. He needed to conserve his energy for a fight he could win.

===#===

The four assassins outside the room waited. They were stealth killers; they dispatched their targets quickly and silently. They tried not to flinch at the loud retorts of the nail gun; tried not to cringe at the screams.

===_X_===


	2. The List

**The List**

_CONTENT:_  
Rating: Mature  
Flavor: Drama, Angst  
Language: some  
Violence: torture  
Nudity: yes (m)  
Sex: none  
Other: yes, more torture

_Author's Note:_

This next part takes place after events in the 'Nanda Parbat' episode, when Oliver and Diggle try to rescue Malcolm.

* * *

**The List**

===#===

Malcolm awoke in a haze of pain. At least now he was lying on the cool floor, not hanging on a rack over hot coals. His throat hurt, his legs and right hand throbbed. He moved slightly. Yes, the bolt, the nails, they had not been removed. He still wore his pants and his shirt, bloodstained and stinking.

He rolled painfully to his hands and knees. Taking stock of his situation didn't take long. He was in a cell in Nanda Parbat. It was bare smooth stone all around, broken only by an iron door in one wall, a ring nearly as thick as his wrist in the center of the floor, to which he was chained, and a hole just slightly smaller than his head in one corner. The Torturer hadn't even left him with a belt. She was thorough.

The bolt on the other side of the door shot back, and it swung ponderously open. He waited on his knees, too hurt and too tired to fight.

A'haDeb entered with a bucket of water and a dipper. Malcolm scooted forward eagerly, not caring if it was a trick, a new torment, or hell, poison - he was that parched. She held the dipper for him as he gulped the water rapidly.

She drew for him another, and a third, before he slowed down.

He wanted to ask what had happened to Oliver, to Diggle. They were probably dead. Captured and executed. It didn't matter. The Torturer wouldn't answer him anyway.

"Take off your shirt."

He didn't see any point resisting, so he did as bade, moving stiffly, painfully. Little scabs on his arms and chest broke and welled up blood. The guards had torn the right sleeve a bit, getting it over the double shackle. At least that made it easier to get off without pulling at his sore hand. The shirt slithered down the chain to bunch over the ring.

"The list," A'haDeb said flatly. The dipper was gone now, resting in the bucket. She pulled a quirt from the back of her belt.

"The List?" He was confused a moment. What did the List have to do with anything now? It was useless since the Undertaking... Not that list.

"Number one," the Torturer prompted.

Malcolm thought back. "Abernath... Emile... Emelia Abernathy."

"Number two."

"Adams..."

The Torturer lashed out and struck him across the back of his neck. "Brian Acacio."

"Brian Acacio," he amended quickly.

"Number three."

"Brenda Adams."

He struggled through the list, badly. It was hundred of names, and he'd only heard it once. The Torturer was merciless. It didn't take long to see that Malcolm didn't know the names, that he'd spend this session flat out on the floor, being beaten over four hundred times.

He was sobbing, his back raw, by the time it was over.

===#===

The Torturer brought him water three more times. Whether hours apart, or days, he could not tell. Blessedly, she didn't speak to him.

Then four guards came to fetch him. They took him to the torture chamber and laid him on the table. It was cold and unyielding on the tender welts. The Torturer locked his right hand down, then used normal restraints on his other limbs. Malcolm tensed, trying to prepare for the ordeal, but his energy was depleted.

A'haDeb unbuttoned and unzipped his fly, then tugged his trousers down. He tensed even more, but she only looked over his legs and the nails still embedded within. The skin around them was tight and reddened. They had been itching badly when they didn't burn with pain, and were probably becoming infected.

For a moment, he hoped she was going to pull them out, but no. He was slated to die. What did it mater?

The Torturer left him exposed and moved off to fetch her tools. He found himself wishing she'd taken his pants off before manacling his ankles. With the chains on, there was no way to get them all the way off, and the way they bunched around his ankles made him feel more vulnerable and naked than if they'd been gone altogether.

He lay back and closed his eyes and tried to ignore it. With Oliver's failed rescue, his best hope was to manage to die quickly. He hoped Thea had at least escaped the League's notice. His and Oliver's deaths should sate their need for blood.

The Torturer returned and began setting objects on the edge of the table. It sounded like small plastic boxes that rattled slightly. Malcolm opened his eyes. They were filled with straight pins.

"You will remember these names," the Torturer said.

Malcolm closed his eyes again as she took a pinch of skin at his ribs and stuck the first pin through it. One for each name. Down his flank, down the outside of his thigh, then up the left side. Like the small cuts across his chest, they were tiny, insignificant, but collectively, they hurt.

Back in his cell, he started pulling them out. He tried to recall the names; there were so many. He pictured his notebook in his mind, creating a new List, scratched out with tiny needles. Written in blood.

===_X_===


	3. Poetic Justice

**Poetic Justice**

_CONTENT:_  
Rating: Mature  
Flavor: Drama, Angst  
Language: some  
Violence: torture  
Nudity: none  
Sex: none  
Other: even more torture (offscreen)

_Author's Note:_

What was Oliver's answer to Ra's al Ghul? What are Oliver and Diggle doing? The story doesn't say. :X But they're there.

Sorry this is so short. The next scene takes place a little while later, so another chapter. Um... and this is about where my Brain fell out of Evil Sadist mode and went frolicking in the daisies, so... I don't know when the rest will get done.

* * *

**Poetic Justice**

===#===

Diggle woke suddenly, all at once. It was the dead of night judging by the impenetrable blackness outside their window. Something had woken him. A sound.

He lifted his head and looked over at Oliver's cot. The archer was already sitting up, leaning against the wall, his face pale in the dark, his eyes reflecting the low light of the coals on the hearth.

"What is it?" Diggle asked muzzily.

"It's Malcolm."

Diggle lifted himself on his elbows, cocked his ear. Yes, he heard it now. A voice, faint and far away, saying, reciting, something. Some trick acoustics of the ancient ventilation system or the chimney flues carried it to their room.

The voice faltered, and there was a loud whip crack, followed by a cry. The litany resumed.

Diggle frowned. "What's he saying?" he whispered to Oliver.

"It's the names of everyone killed in the Undertaking."

Diggle swallowed. Well, don't say the League didn't go in for poetic justice. Involuntarily, he flinched at another whip crack.

He put his head back down. Oliver had some kind of emotional investment in the Dark Archer's well-being, but he did not. He tried to retain a cold-heartedness towards their former enemy. He tried to return to sleep.

===#===

"Number 318."

"Tommy-" His voice broke. "Thomas Merlyn."

"Number 319."

They never stopped at Tommy's name. The Torturer never asked why that was the only one he never forgot, why his voice always wavered saying that name. Did she know who Tommy was? Did she even know that he was the only one Malcolm knew personally? Did she care?

Tommy was just another number, another casualty - a statistic. He wasn't at the top of the list; he wasn't saved until the end. He was just filed away with all the others, in alphabetical order.

Sometimes Malcolm wondered at different clusters of names. Were they related? Which were the parents, which the children? Had Malcolm killed whole families, or were they just random strangers grouped together? He would never know.

===_X_===


	4. Suffering is Optional

**Suffering is Optional**

_CONTENT:_  
Rating: Mature  
Flavor: Drama, Angst  
Language: no  
Violence: torture  
Nudity: implied(m)  
Sex: none  
Other: yet more torture

_Author's Note:_

A sort of turning point.

* * *

**Suffering is Optional**

===#===

Hell is an eternal torment of fire and pain. Heat burned his body, parched his throat, until it was all-consuming, and even the pain faded under its onslaught. Then blackness came, and he knew nothing more.

===#===

Malcolm returned to his senses slowly. He felt weak, drained, and yet somehow cleansed, as if his suffering had purified his body. He heard the whisper of flames in a nearby fire, but felt not the heat from it. The smell of stale sweat, of festering sores had also receded. His eyes drifted open and he saw the dark stone of the ceiling, but that told him nothing he didn't already know: he was in some room of Nanda Parbat.

His head lolled to his right, and he focused on his hand. The double shackle was gone. His wrist was tied to the metal table with nothing more than soft cloth. As for the bolt, there was something there, but he couldn't quite make out the pale shape. Until it shifted. Writhed, as the tangle of maggots on his hand probed into the hole, looking to feast.

He drew a sharp breath and reflexively tried to sit up, to reach over and flick the vermin away with his other hand, but he was tied down again, at wrist and ankle.

"Leave them to their work." The Torturer's voice remained quiet, cool, like a stone lying undisturbed at the bottom of a lake.

Malcolm stopped struggling, though he turned his head away before the sight made him sick. The maggots would remove the necrotic flesh from in and around his wound. He swallowed dryly and tried to think of something else. How Ra's Al Ghul had mandated he not be permanently damaged, thus this hole in his hand... could be treated. Healed. And what had the Torturer been planning to do before that mandate? With the blood pressure cuff, with the power tools... something permanent. His mind shied away from that as well.

"You were delirious," A'haDeb continued tonelessly, still refusing to look at him. "Are you coherent now?"

"I am," he croaked. Then, "Please. Thirsty." His lips were cracked, his throat a sandy pit. He wouldn't beg, but he had nothing to lose by just asking.

"You will have water when we are finished."

Finished with what, he didn't want to ask. But he clung to that scrap of promise. A bit of ease, if he survived this next ordeal.

"You spoke the names while you were delirious. Do you remember?"

Remember reciting the list while he was feverish? No. But the names? "I do."

"The Head of the Demon would hear them."

"I am ready."

"He will send for you tonight." She turned away, moved past the table, towards the quiet whisper of the flames.

Malcolm felt something in his heart. Not trepidation, as he'd expected, but... hope? The Demon would hear his confession, and then execute him. At last, he would be released from this Hell. If there was another one beyond, he would deal with it then, but for now, escape was within his grasp. Even if it was at the edge of a blade.

A'haDeb returned from the fire, bearing a long, slim shaft of metal, glowing pale gold with heat. Malcolm knew the nails must have been removed from his legs, but the wounds were too narrow, too deep to cleanse in any other way. He laid his head back on the table and took a deep breath.

Hot metal filled the first wound like lava. His scream was weak, even to his own ears. He took control, began reciting the names. He let the pain clarify his mind, let it help him in his struggle to remember. As they had been cut, as they had been written in blood, now they glowed in incandescent agony, seared into his memory.

He welcomed it.

===_X_===


	5. Release

**Release**

_CONTENT:_  
Rating: Mature  
Flavor: Drama, Angst  
Language: no  
Violence: not yet  
Nudity: none  
Sex: none  
Other: the aftermath of torture

_Author's Note:_

I'm afraid this is where the story drops off. Will it end in triumph or tragedy? The Reader will have to decide.

* * *

**Release**

===#===

As promised, the Torturer granted him relief after his ordeal. Malcolm knelt, in chains once more, and drank thirstily from the dipper she held for him. She did not deny him; she let him drink his fill. He took as much as he could, as quickly as he could, without throwing up. His legs still burned, his wounds ached, and his stomach twisted with hunger, but his thirst was slaked.

He recited the list to himself until they came to fetch him and bring him before the Demon's Head. The guards used the longer chain, so he could stumble along between them to the central chamber.

Elite assassins ringed the perimeter, here to bear witness to the League's justice. Ra's Al Ghul stood upon a dais, with his guards, watching over the proceedings. Malcolm didn't look up at any of them. He made it to his designated place in the center of the tile mandala, and sank to his knees, his head bowed.

It would all be over soon.

Malcolm hoped his penance would grant Tommy's spirit some measure of rest. That it would help make up for his failure to save Rebecca. It had to take some measure against every sin he'd ever committed. He had to believe that.

And Thea. He had to believe she had a chance to escape, to heal from the scars he'd inflicted on her. If she couldn't forgive him, she could at least have the satisfaction to know he was dead. Gone from her life for good.

===#===

Oliver stood at Ra's Al Ghul's left, a pace behind the Demon's Head, with Diggle at his shoulder. Despite the Demon's assurances that Oliver would ascend to the pinnacle of power over the League of Assassins, Ra's refused to let his heir strike down his judgment against Malcolm Merlyn. At least, while he was still alive. Oliver hadn't been able to kill him, not yet. Ra's forbore killing Oliver again in their duels, but had still driven him to defeat.

Oliver didn't know what else he could do, that wouldn't endanger his sister, or anyone else for that matter.

He didn't know what to expect when he saw Malcolm Merlyn. He knew the League's reputation for ruthlessness and cruelty, he'd heard Merlyn's cries in the night with his own ears. He'd seen Malcolm hanging in chains over hot coals, but he'd never imagined this man, this warrior, could ever be truly defeated. Nor broken.

And yet, there he was, on his knees, head bowed, the fight gone out of him. World weary.

One of the League's Elite, a woman in black and crimson, stepped into the circle before Malcolm. "You will recall the names of the 503 people killed in the Undertaking."

Malcolm licked his lips. "Number one..."

===#===

"Number 490: Jacob Zydeichak."

Oliver shot a glance at Diggle. The ex-soldier tried to keep his face expressionless, but there was a faint twitch of his brow. They had both noticed the list was in alphabetical order, but how could it end at 490?

The silence in the chamber was complete; no one moved. Malcolm wet his lips again, and in a shaky voice, continued.

"Number 491: unidentified male, age over 80.

"Number 492: unidentified female, age mid-sixties.

"Number 493: unidentified female, age mid-sixties.

"Number 494: unidentified male, age 28-35.

"Number 495: unidentified female, age 16-18.

"Number 496: unidentified male, age 12-14.

"Number 497: unidentified female, age 11-13.

"Number 498: unidentified male, age 8-10.

"Number 499: unidentified female, age 8-10.

"Number 500: unidentified female, age 4-5.

"Number 501: unidentified male, age approximately 2 years.

"Number 502: unidentified male, age 18 months.

"Number 503: unidentified female, age 5 months."

Oliver felt Diggle tense beside him. He, himself, felt a tension, a rage smoldering inside. It was one thing to hear a number, it was one thing to hear a list of names of strangers. Even the sting of hearing Tommy's name couldn't compare to how starkly the list portrayed Malcolm's sins. He'd killed families. Children. Infants!

Oliver began to see the wisdom in the punishment handed down by Ra's Al Ghul. The necessity.

Malcolm remained kneeling in the center of the circle, his head hung low, his face wet.

The woman in crimson and black said, "You killed them?"

"Yes. I killed them all," he confessed. "I'm sorry! Please... end it."

"Why?"

Another silence reigned in the hall, broken only by the quiet hitch in Malcolm's breathing. "I don't know," he said.

Oliver looked to Ra's. The Demon lifted his chin. "Execute him."

The woman turned to him. "He did not confess why."

"Really, A'haDeb, you are far more cruel than I."

Oliver felt he should say something, but at this point he did not know what would be more kind and what more cruel. To stay Malcolm's execution, or let it be a clean, swift death.

===#===

The Torturer glared down at him, though she did not reach to draw her sword.

Malcolm met her cold dark stare. "I don't know," he lied again. Why did he do it? Because he was stupid and selfish, and hurting so badly, so mad with pain. "It doesn't matter any more. Please, just-"

End it.

End me.

For it is over and there is nothing left for me to give. All I touch crumbles to dust and ashes.

A voice interrupted him, the daughter of the Demon, echoing stridently through the chamber. "There is a name missing from your list."

Everyone turned, even Malcolm, though when he lifted his head and could see, he was shocked to notice Oliver - _Oliver!_ \- standing at the Demon's hand. Not dead. Not a prisoner. Wearing traditional clothing, not the uniform of an assassin, but the black garb of the Demon?

He had barely a split second to process all he saw, before his gaze was torn to the young woman who accompanied Nyssa. Thea. Shock crossed her face. "Oh my God!" She lunged towards him, clearly intent on helping him, somehow, but two assassins stopped her. She wriggled and kicked, but they held her tightly.

Nyssa faced off against the Torturer. "Where is Ta-er Al Sahfer's name on this list?"

"I told you," Thea spat, "I killed Sara!"

"_No!_" Malcolm went rigid, nearly rose halfway to his feet. "Thea, don't do this," he said, his eyes boring into his daughter's. "You don't know what they'll do to you!"

But she did. She could see it right in front of her. She shook her head, swallowing tears.

Malcolm turned to Nyssa. "I killed Ta-er Al Sahfer. You _know_ this."

She turned to him with a sneer. "And you told me, so convincingly, that it was illogical for you to anger the Heir to the Demon, with a Blood Bounty already on your head."

"I did it to drive a wedge between you and your father." He sharpened his words, like thrown knives. "Although it seems I needn't have wasted my time." He flicked his eyes past her, towards the dais.

Nyssa whirled, and she took in Ra's, Oliver, and Diggle. And saw what Malcolm had seen: Oliver at the Demon's hand. Wearing two of the rings that had once graced Ra's Al Ghul's fingers. "What is the meaning of this!" she demanded.

Ra's straightened his spine further. "You are no longer Heir to the Demon."

"I am your daughter! I have trained my entire life to be by your side, to take up the mantle-"

"You threw that all away when you allowed emotion to cloud your rational judgment."

Nyssa ground her teeth. "It's true, then. Everything he said about you."

"I've explained my position to you," Ra's said coldly.

"I don't believe you."

He shook his head. "Because the Magician poisoned you against me, and your fear of my disapproval, your sorrow over the loss of your beloved, and your mad thirst for vengeance have made you irrational. And not fit to lead."

"I challenge this usurper!" Her eyes flashed. "Oliver Queen, I will meet you in combat to the death!"

Ra's held up a hand to forestall any reply from Oliver. To his daughter he said, "I thought you came for Al SaHer's head. Not Mr. Queen's."

Oliver opened his mouth as if to say something, but then he closed it, and his gaze went to Thea. When he shifted to look at Malcolm, their eyes met.

===_X_===

* * *

_End Notes:_

Bloodsong: um, so, what happens?

Bloodsong's Brain: I dunno. Torture all done. The End!

Bloodsong: you can't leave them there like that!

Bloodsong's Brain: Hmmmm... okay, Battle Royale! Ra's vs Nyssa vs Oliver vs Malcolm vs Diggle vs Thea vs Maseo vs A'haDeb! EVERYBODY FREE FOR ALL! OOT OOT!

Bloodsong: why do i even have you?

.

PS: I posted an Arrow-verse Free-For-All result over on my (Not So) Live Journal. If you're interested.


End file.
